“We do not know for certain how long that will take,” says Supervisor Hillary Ronen

Laundry is a waiting game, and now the the owner of the Wash Land laundromat at 2918 Mission will have to wait even longer to find out if he can raze the circa-1924 building in favor of a 75-unit housing development, after the Board of Supervisors put off a vote on the project to determine whether or not the facility is historically significant.

The housing proposal, in the works since 2014 and approved by the Planning Commission in December, invokes California’s state density bonus law to go over and above the zoning for the block…

The planning code states to grant a conditional use the’ project is necessary, desirable and compatible with the neighborhood. This project has none of the above… (more)

It’s not uncommon for visitors to San Francisco to leave town shocked by all the homeless people roaming the streets, many with visibly severe mental health problems.

Now, state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-S.F.) is teaming up with state Sen. Henry Stern (D-Canoga Park) on legislation to give counties more options for getting homeless people off the streets and into services.

SB 1045 is a shell of a bill at the moment, but Sen. Wiener is hoping to write it with homeless advocates to address concerns about civil liberties and other issues… (more)

Even a pro-growth, pro-development department has to admit that Wiener’s latest housing bill goes way too far (and does nothing for the affordable housing crisis)

The areas in orange and yellow are the places Scott Wiener’s bill would upzone. It’s pretty much the entire city. SF Planning Dept. map

The San Francisco Planning Department – which is not known for its anti-development tendencies – has issued a blistering critique of state Sen. Scott Wiener’s new housing bill that points to a long list of problems the legislation would have for the senator’s home town…

When the San Francisco City Planning Department says that a bill is huge giveaway to a handful of developers and property owners, it’s a signal that this is beyond even the normal neo-liberal policy that governs land use in this city and state… (more)

No one in California is safe from SB 827. Read the analysis of the bill here: SB 827. If you feel this is a bad idea let your local city representatives know you oppose SB 827. Any developer can order a bus stop in front of their project to make it “transit rich”. The bus stop may not last but the 10 story or higher building will stand for a long time. Oh, and SB 827, written by Yimbys, already has cousins, SB 828, and 829 that will alter the numbers to capture more areas. Some fear that passage of the bill will bring more Yimby lawsuits against cities that approve less dense projects, as they have in Lafayette and San Francisco already.

On the evening of October 18th, citizens and activists packed the cafeteria of Gateway High School, intent on speaking out against certain injustices that have been visited upon the residents of the Midtown Park Apartments. Addressing the crowd were a somber set of officials. Some spoke for the Mayor’s Office of Housing, while others were representing Mercy Housing, the massive, development-oriented nonprofit…

Conspicuously absent from the high school meeting was Supervisor London Breed, a supporter of Mercy’s new designs for Midtown…

A Brief History of Midtown[1]

Shortly after Midtown opened, its original developer went belly-up and defaulted on the loan. The lenders soon came calling; in order to keep the property afloat, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) stepped in and negotiated for the City to take over the property. Shortly thereafter, in 1968, the City gave a 40-year lease for the property to the Midtown Park Corporation, a nonprofit established by tenants to oversee the upkeep of the grounds…

To recap: the City claimed to own Midtown. The City promised Midtown residents rent control. Midtown tenants struggled to meet the rising costs of maintenance. The City vetoed proposed rent increases, citing rent control protections for Midtown. Without increased revenue or support from its owner, the City, the complex fell into disrepair. Now that a backroom deal has granted control of the property to Mercy Housing, the City is looking the other way as rent control protections are destroyed. Midtown’s tenants are facing an injustice in triplicate: the City’s failure to help them maintain the buildings, the revocation of rent control, and, if the City gets its way, the complete demolition of their homes…

[1] For more detailed history, check out Natalia Kresich’s article on 48 Hills and the Save Midtown website… (more)

Can we reform local politics in a Citizens United era? Or will some reforms just make things worse?

The San Francisco Ethics Commission could be facing a showdown with the Board of Supes in the next two weeks over a detailed, complex set of changes to the city’s campaign rules that board members first reviewed last week – but that the commission could put on the ballot without changes Feb. 16.

The commission in November, after months of discussion, sent a package to the board that finally got a hearing in the Budget and Finance Committee last week…

And the way the City Charter works, the supes can either adopt the rules pretty much as they are – or the Ethics Commission can vote Feb. 16 to place the measure on the June 5 ballot.

“The commission has put the board in a tough spot,” Peskin said. “It’s hard to get this right in a handful of days.”…(more)

As I noted earlier, the major public opposition to the Ethic’s Commission bill came from the big non-profits connected to the development community. This bills will win or lose based on the emotional appeal of the concept. Voters will not be reading the fine print on this one.

None of the candidates made a case for why they are different than the others; that’s a problem when the city is in a serious crisis and so many voters are undecided

The first mayoral debate of the spring had no clear winners or losers; in fact, none of the candidates stood out as dramatically different from any of the others. That may be in part because this event was sponsored by the decidedly moderate United Democratic Club, with the decidedly conservative Chronicle Editorial Page Editor John Diaz asking all of the questions.

There’s clearly a lot of interest in the race: So many people came out on a beautiful Saturday afternoon that the Koret Auditorium at the main library filled to capacity, as didn an overflow room, and still people were turned away.

The candidates had a chance to define themselves as different in a crowded field, and I don’t think any of them did that.

Mark Leno came the closest: From the start, he said that he is convinced that “we need a new direction at City Hall” and that he would offer “a fundamental change from the status quo.”…

I give Kim and Leno credit: They were the only two who said, when asked about homelessness, that prevention is as important as responding…

Leno suggested that the city ought to sue the speculators who are abusing the Ellis Act by purchasing building after building and in each case claiming they want to go out of the business of being a landlord.

Weiss correctly pointed out that it does not good to put people in shelters or medical facilities if they are released back to the streets with no place to go. She’s a fan of Seattle-style “supportive villages.”…

When it came to traffic congestion, we saw a few minor differences. Breed is not in favor of a London-style toll system that charges drivers for the right to head into congested areas; Kim and Leno said that’s an idea worth pursuing…(more)

Missed this Mayoral debate, as I attended the much more divisive Senator Wiener Town Hall. This event attracted a crowd of people from outside the city and a lot of folks from Wiener’s district 8, who oppose the housing legislation he is pushing, outlined in this article: “Scott Weiner’s War on Local Planning”

All of the issues involving housing, displacement, homelessness, crime, and economic inequalities are based on the belief that “unlimited growth is good”. Where in California has dense housing resulted in a decease in displacement, homelessness, crime, or a better lifestyle for residents?